Jake Gardiner enjoys first day of freedom with the Leafs

Jake Gardiner enjoys first day of freedom with the Leafs

On his first day of so-called freedom, Jake Gardiner looked happy.

The young defenceman, who was called up on Tuesday to the Toronto Maple Leafs after a 21-game exile in the minors, participated in the team’s morning skate prior to Wednesday night’s game against the Tampa Bay Lightning. He spent of the time taking one-timers and skating with expected partner John-Michael Liles.

“Everybody wants to be called up as soon as they possibly can,” said Gardiner, who has played two games for the Leafs this season. “You just have to keep working at it and your chance will come. Right now, I’m kind of getting a second chance, so I just have to make sure I play well and help the team win.”

It has been nearly two months since Gardiner last played in an NHL game or even participated in an NHL practice, but there will not be much time for him to get acclimated. With Toronto winless in its last five games, the team is looking for something — anything — to give them a spark.

And while it is unfair to expect the 22-year-old to make a difference right away, head coach Randy Carlyle said there was no hesitation in the timing of the call-up.

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“The apprehension would be only if he wasn’t performing at a level where we think he wouldn’t have success,” said Carlyle. “The apprehension goes out the door when the player goes out and performs at the level that you expect him to perform at. Now, is Jake Gardiner the savior. That’s a label that we have to guard ourselves against.”

Gardiner’s time with the Toronto Marlies became an issue last week, when his agent tweeted #freejakegardiner following a Leafs loss. On Tuesday, general manager Dave Nonis said Gardiner had called to say that he had no problem playing in the minors, where he was averaging around 30 minutes per game and scored 10 goals and 31 points in 43 games.

At the same time, the decision to call-up Gardiner and send down Korbinian Holzer had nothing to do with what Carlyle called “white noise.”

Everybody wants to be called up as soon as they possibly can

“You have to remember the concussion took him out of the American Hockey League for close to six weeks,” Carlyle said of a bodycheck he received on Nov. 30. “When you sit on the couch from the first of December to after January, that’s a long time. He basically did very little before he got an opportunity to participate in training camp and it showed.

“We knew that we were going to call up Jake at some point … the issue is some people around it felt that it was too long.”

Still, some could not help but poke a little fun at the circumstances that resulted in Gardiner getting back to the NHL. One reporter asked if Gardiner was going to give his agent a raise. And when defenceman Mike Komisarek walked into the dressing room and noticed the scrum around his teammate, he playfully shouted “Jake Gardiner is free!”